Why Small Businesses Need to Build Trust and Authority

Why is trust and authority so important to small businesses? While it takes time and effort to build both trust and authority, if done well, it can help businesses overcome their marketing challenges.

Consider for a moment the last time you had a problem that you needed to solve. You probably didn’t call someone based on one ad you saw a long time ago, you may have Googled it, but more likely you asked some of your friends for help. So, what if your business could become a trust friend to someone?

Content marketing is the first step to becoming a trusted friend. First, it allows you to be known for what you do. (In marketing speak this is called awareness.) Second, over time you become a reputable source of information on your speciality. And while someone may not need your help immediately, when they do have a problem related to your business, they’re more likely to call you because of the conversation and rapport you’ve already started with them.

Be An Expert

You may think you are an expert in your chosen field, but how many other people would agree? Do people only roughly know what you do? Does anyone quote you? Often even clients only know one part of what your business does, but content marketing can help your entire audience see the big picture.

Developing real expertise in your industry, allows you to create trust with your audience. Sharing your expertise adds value to your brand because it benefits your audience. They’ll be attracted to your business and continue to develop a relationship with you. As they interact with your content, maybe they’ll share some of your information with others. Eventually, when they need your service, they’ll respond by talking to you and possibly giving you their business – provided, they continue to have a good experience with your sales team and think you can help them solve their problem. This process of sharing valuable information allows you to build a profitable business.

A word of caution about blogging and content. It has to be good. And it needs to provide value. Some people fear sharing their best knowledge because they think if they give it away, then no one will pay for it. However, if it isn’t high-quality, relevant and valuable information, no one will pay attention. Content needs to be current, unique, helpful, and be insightful by solving a problem, sharing a secret or inspiring greatness. Trickery, poor quality and inconsistency will only undermine your efforts.

As a result of content marketing, you can build a good reputation, be credible and become an expert to your audience, which allows you to feel like a trusted friend to them before they’ve even met you. Regardless of what you sell or what you do, anyone can establish thought leadership, build trust and increase authority by sharing their knowledge.

Need more reasons why you should spend your time creating content and sharing?

Establishes a Clear Strategy for Your Small Business

Before you can create great content, you need to define who you are and what you do. If your business lacks direction and strategy, then this process will greatly benefit you and your team by focusing your marketing around the idea of building your thought leadership. Defining your purpose can help your business position itself within your industry. It provides direction and clearly defines your target audience. You can’t be all things to all people, so articulating what services you do (and don’t) offer to everyone inside and outside the business helps you be known for what you do best and specialize in.

When done correctly, all the things your business does will tie into a strategic marketing plan to increase your presence and recognition within a particular field. This will provide you with a clear value proposition, and give your business a roadmap on how to move forward.

Bonus Marks for SEO

For doing all this work, not only will you build trust and authority with your target audience and give your business a strategic plan, but you’ll also get a boost in your SEO rankings.

Modern search engines use algorithms to find, read, and determine what a web page is about. For any query, there are literally thousands of pages that could apply and relate to that topic. Search engines use complex algorithms to sort through all those pages to figure out the best pages by assigning an authority ranking to pages.

There are many blog posts on how search engines validate and gauge the level of authority of each web page for any given topic. Since that isn’t the focus of this article, we’ll simply say that more content and fresh content is important to rankings. Why? Recent information is likely to be more relevant. And when you have more content (provided it is quality content and follows SEO best practices), then you have more opportunities for one of your pages to be displayed for a topic.

Put Your Expertise And Content To Work

Here’s your chance to shine and show-off what you know. Being an expert and sharing your knowledge can help you continue to grow your business – besides it’s also kinda nice to finally get recognition for all those years you’ve spent perfecting your craft.